SAN FRANCISCO, CA – May 22, 2008 – Trulia.com, the best place to start a real estate search (http://www.trulia.com ), today unveiled a suite of free tools and services for real estate professionals (http://www.trulia.com/agents/) that will help them better market themselves to prospective home buyers and sellers. Trulia’s new offering gives agents increased visibility for their personal brand on all of their listings, and allows for a direct communication between buyers and the listing agent.
Expanding on the comprehensive services that Trulia currently delivers to real estate professionals, new value-added free services and tools include:
- Brand Your Listings (http://www.trulia.com/agents/brand_your_listings/) : This service allows agents to upload their photograph and personal contact information on every listing they have on Trulia.com. Consumers wanting more information about a listing can contact agents and brokers directly via email with a click of the Contact Me button.
- Promote Your Open Homes (http://www.trulia.com/agents/brand_your_listings/): Agents and brokers can now market and promote their open homes more effectively. By listing an open house on Trulia.com, agents and brokers can provide all of the relevant details and drive visibility among the 70 percent of Trulia users who plan to purchase a home within a year.
- See Stats for Sellers: This feature allows Trulia users to track how many times a property has been viewed, giving insight into the potential interest level among prospective home buyers. In this difficult real estate market, this data also could provide critical insight to sellers if there is a mismatch between the number of total views versus home buyer inquiries. As agents and brokers consider what marketing services are proving to be the most valuable, Trulia enables an optimal level of transparency that translates into ROI measurement.
“We’re always looking for ways that we can enhance our online offerings to deliver the most value to real estate professionals while giving consumers an amazing user experience,” said Sami Inkinen, co-founder and COO of Trulia. “With this robust set of services and tools, we are confident that agents using Trulia.com will gain a significant competitive advantage. It’s a great way for agents to not only introduce themselves to home buyers who are searching online, but also to advertise their open homes for free to a local audience.”
Along with Trulia Voices, the online forum that brings together agents, brokers, homebuyers and homeowners, this new suite of tools and services gives real estate professionals yet another vehicle for reaching the over 70 percent of users planning to buy or sell a home within the next year and the 70 percent of users who are not yet working with an agent. With user traffic currently at 5 million unique monthly visits, Trulia is committed to integrating as many innovative and results-driven optimization tools to help real estate professionals (http://www.trulia.com/agents/) capture the attention of consumers migrating online to conduct their real estate searches. Agents not yet marketing on Trulia can submit their listings and get started at www.trulia.com/submit_listings.
“In this market, being savvy about buying and selling real-estate is only the tip of the iceburg,” said Trulia Voices agent Mario Pinedo of Intero Real Estate. “Your online marketing prowess as a real estate professional is as great of a factor as location is for a buyer–it’s vital. I’m excited to link arms with Trulia to ensure that I have the tools and services at my disposal that will allow me to bolster my online brand.”
About Trulia
Trulia, Inc. (http://www.trulia.com/), a residential real estate search engine and the fastest-growing U.S. real estate Web site (comScore), has revolutionized online home search by offering a rich, intuitive user experience that points consumers directly to listings on agent and broker Web sites. By partnering with the real estate industry, including 93 of the top 100 largest U.S. brokers, Trulia helps approximately 5 million unique visitors per month find information on homes for sale using custom search criteria. The site also provides market trends and neighborhood data at the hyper-local level, as well as Trulia Voices, a real estate Q&A community, that enables consumers and professionals to exchange information about their local markets. For more information about Trulia or to experience the power of a Trulia search, visit http://www.trulia.com/.
Media Contact:
Ayanna Anderson for Trulia
415-655-4560
